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I decided to head toward the river, because it was pretty down there and you could run along the path. Running wasn’t just a fitness requirement for me, it helped clear my head, and after the turmoil of the past months, I needed it.
It was when I could lash out at life, my legs carrying me and pushing me to go faster or further, while I cried and let off steam, blasting Mom for getting sick, for not getting better, for not responding to treatment, for leaving us.
Because we were supposed to be a team, Mom and me, the dynamic duo, she called us.
Not so dynamic anymore.
And no longer a duo.
Chapter 2
Max
The sight of the metallicred Mercedes coupe made me roll my eyes. It seemed that Bianca had done it, coerced her father into buying her one. So sickening.
I continued driving, parking as far from her as I could. I brought my truck to a halt next to a silver SUV, frowning because it looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember who owned it. Was it Aaron, or Jorja? Whoever, it hardly mattered. Only that I was nowhere close to Bianca Holbrun.
It was going to be difficult to avoid her though. I mean, senior year, tennis team, year book, it was likely we’d run into each other on a daily basis. Wow, probably an hourly basis. I thought I’d been prepared for it, but obviously I wasn’t.
We’d dated for five months of junior year, well, right up until May 3 when I was unceremoniously dumped by text:Max, the last thing I'd ever want to do is hurt you, but I feel it's best to be upfront with you. While I have loved dating you, I just don't see us working out. It's nothing you or I did, I just don't see our goals aligning in the future and feel we would be better as friends, like we used to be. Call me and we can talk about it. B xx
It had definitely been a curveball, totally unexpected, my initial reaction had been a gaping hole of loss and dejection. And then my friends said it looked like her text was a copy and paste. And for sure,our goals aligning in the futuredid not sound like anything Bianca would say out loud. My sadness morphed into anger. And a few days later, while I was still in a major funk, she was spotted with Will Talbot, senior and captain of the tennis team. Let’s just say they were practicing more than their forehands. I’d been shocked first, then embarrassed. Embarrassed that I’d been dumped for Will. A week later, she was on his arm at senior prom.
So, yeah, that had hurt. Knowing I’d been replaced in a heartbeat. Especially as I thought we had something meaningful. We’d been in the same friend group since sophomore year, so when she started flirting with me at tennis, of course I was keen, I was excited. The Holbruns were old money around River Valley. The family law firm was an institution in the town and had branches all over the state. Bianca was part of Covington Prep royalty, like the Whittakers, the Penningtons, the Stanhopes, the Lowens. A whole hierarchy above the rest of us.
Being my very first relationship, I’d fallen fast. All of a sudden I was catapulted up the status standings, the prestige of having the gorgeous Bianca by my side. And when she dumped me, I fell back into oblivion faster than a tower of Jenga blocks. Mom had been sympathetic and kind, while Dad had taken the more manly approach of telling me to move on. So that was my intention, put Bianca behind me.
I walked the long way round the parking lot to avoid Bianca and her car, where she was now holding court. Probably telling everyone about the turbo engine boost or how it could go from 0-60 mph in 4.9 seconds. (That’s sarcasm—doubtful Bianca would know how many doors her car had.)
It’s funny how you can go from being an easy-going, chill sort of person without a care in the world to one embittered and twisted and disillusioned. All because of one sour relationship. Well, good luck to Bianca Holbrun and Will Talbot, her now college boyfriend.
The familiar hallways of Covington Prep were a welcome sight, but there was a pang of pain and heaviness knowing that my best friend Phoenix wasn’t here for the first day of senior year. I joined my other friends, Jordy and Miles, all of us eyeing the freshmen, remembering how three years ago that was us—skinny kids, scared and intimidated. Now we were the ones doing the intimidating—simply by standing tall in our striped blazers—and being over six foot tall didn’t hurt either. There was no ill will to the freshmen, it was just a rite of passage they had to go through as we had all those years before. We laughed as we watched them scurrying around with their overloaded backpacks and designer totes, but after the welcoming assembly in the gym, we’d be guiding them around the school.
As Principal Porter’s speech droned on, my concentration turned to the back of Bianca’s long blonde ponytail two rows in front of me. The school regulation was that hair couldn’t be dyed in unnatural colors, but I guessed Bianca’s platinum highlights didn’t breach that rule. A resentment churned in the pit of my stomach, not only her fake hair and her shiny red car, but the thought that I’d wasted those months giving her my time and energy, that I’d cared for her and had even murmured the L word. Maybe that was what hurt the most—that I’d saidI love youto her, yet she was with somebody else. In my eyes love wasn’t some fickle thing, some temporary thing—it was commitment and security and a life lived together.
Man, my naivety was laughable, ludicrous, lamentable.
